The City’s Assistant City Manager for Finance position has been removed from the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, and the money has been transferred to the Fire Department to help pay to staff a second City-run ambulance.
Tuesday night, the City Council approved a change to FY26 budget during the annual Budget Hearing. The Council approved the $223.66 million budget, including a transfer of the $172,555 for the Assistant Manager for Finance’s salary from the City Manager’s Account to the Fire Department Account.
City Council President announced his intention to propose the change to the City’s staffing at the June 3 meeting and it was discussed on Tuesday during the public hearing.
Multiple residents spoke in favor of the change, noting that the City did not have a job description for the Assistant City Manager for Finance as well as other positions.
Former City Councilor Angeline Kounelis was one of those in support of removing the finance position.
“Many of you may recall my communication to the City Council within the last couple of months talking about the 30 plus positions that have been recently created, and I did not support those positions,” she said. “And I think that the City Council should be seriously looking at eliminating other positions, but I think this is a good start to eliminate the position of Assistant Manager for Finance.”
Council Vice President Vincent Piccirilli, who chairs the Council’s Committee for Budget and Fiscal Oversight, said he was in favor of the change.
“(When the position was created) It seemed like a good idea, and it seemed like it was going to solve a problem,” he said. “Two years into — I’ll just say as chair of the Budget and Fiscal Oversight Committee I perhaps work most closely (among the Council) with this person — that it really didn’t turn out the way.”
He added that after the budget was submitted in April, the Budget and Fiscal Oversight Committee held hearings about staffing a second ambulance, and sent a recommendation to hire eight paramedics. The full Council approved the recommendation in May. Piccirilli said the elimination of the Assistant Manager for Finance and transferring funds to the Fire Department would allow for the immediate hiring of two paramedics.
Councilor Tony Palomba also supported the change, but had some concerns about what that might do to the City Manager’s work load.
“I’m a little torn with what the does with those who were supervised by the Assistant City Manager for Finance, I assume, would now become the responsibility of the City Manager to supervise,” Palomba said. “And I think one of the goals of this effort was to decrease the supervisions that the city manager had. So I’m a little concerned.”
City Manager George Proakis said that the oversight of employees and would be shared. The Assistant Manager for Finance works with the Manager to create the Budget, among other things.
“Much of this work actually may fall to our Management and Grant Specialist (Mark Lang), who’s doing a very good job and has played a key role in the budget, has been very involved in document production in the budget, but has also started seeking out our grants,” he said. “So I want to make sure he has adequate time to do great time to do grant work, although there are likely to potentially be fewer federal grants in the coming months, I do think it’s possible for him to pick up a lot of pieces here, but the Deputy Manager (Emily Monea) and I and some of the finance team will be, will be looking at kind of where all the pieces fit.”
He added that Watertown’s needs have become more clear since he arrived in 2022. Under the City Charter the Auditor reports to the City Council.
“The twist on that that was unique to Watertown was that the previous Auditor (Tom Tracy) was given a stipend to work for the manager (Michale Driscoll) as well, which created this sort of split report,” Proakis said. “It worked for Mr. Driscoll and Mr. Tracy. I think they were a strong financial team. When they both left, we all tried to figure out a way forward.”
Also, Driscoll served as both Manager and CFO, Proakis said. He added that while that is not one of his strengths, he focuses more on planning, personnel management, and public interaction.
When designing the financial team for the new Manager, there was an effort to split the roles to give the Auditor some independence from the Manager, Proakis said. The workload also had to be split up.
The Assistant Manager for Finance did not have as much access to the financial data as the previous setup when the Auditor also worked on the budget.
“There’s a long standing tradition that the Auditor holds financial data of the City, meaning any time that you have to do financial analysis or something, you’re kind of working to the Auditor to get the data and manage the data, and she has the information at her fingertips,” Proakis said.
Another area that Driscoll was heavily involved in was contract negotiations, which has been taken on by Deputy Manager, Proakis said.
He also spoke about the new positions added to the City staff since his arrival.
“I think what we have done is we’ve adjusted the size of Watertown’s government to match our expectations, our hopes, our needs. Otherwise I would have been unable to deliver on the Council’s policy from day one, and I don’t want that to happen,” he said. “So I know now and then conversations come up about the new growth and staff over the past two fiscal years. It accompanied new growth numbers that allowed us to do that. It allowed us to grow, to meet our needs, and it’s left me with the staff that can meet the Council’s goals without needing a debt exclusion, without needing an override.”
Proakis noted that the growth has slowed, but he is still confident in maintaining the staff.
“Now the window on that growth is closing, and that’s OK. So the idea that we have to make more strategic pro and con decisions as we figure out where to go, that’s the trend we’re heading into with where our new growth numbers are,” he said. “That’s OK, I still think we can meet our needs without an override. We’re going to try to do the Middle School project as well. Each of these things makes it more challenging, but the baseline financials here are solid, and I think we should be able to continue making the right investments.”
Proakis also noted that the City is working with a consultant to come up with job descriptions for all positions in the municipal government.
The Council unanimously approved the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, with the amendment to remove the salary for the Assistant Manager for Finance from the City Manager’s account and move it to the Fire Department.
See the budget documents here, and the FY2026 budget here (before the adjustments were made).
Great move. Thank you.
Makes great sense since most calls to Fire Department involve Medics & medical care. Good decision